"Why do they [write] for their money? Why do they [work] for short pay? They ain't getting nowhere and they're losing their share. They must have gone crazy back there." — Michael Burton (paraphrased)
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, December 31, 2016, 10:54 a.m. It’s the final day of 2016. The year will soon be tucked snugly in bed, and all the Trump partisans will have sugarplums dancing in their heads, that is, if they can get to sleep amid all the fireworks. That’s my metaphor for Year of Our …
Continue reading Not a Fond Farewell but a Farewell, Just the Same
I have demonstrated my allegiance to fiction. At present, I am about seventy-five percent done with what will become my sixth novel. Three – Crazy of Natural Causes (2015), Forgive Us Our Trespasses (2016), and Cowboys Come Home (2016) -- have been published in the past two years. It appears likely that Don’t Ask, …
At least a dozen people today have told me they’re glad it’s about to be over, but it won’t be. The division of this country is at its peak. It won’t just stop when a president is determined. Oh, no. The losers are going to try to get the winners impeached. Maybe I’ve just been …
Don't it beat all? Ain't things out of control? Damndest thing ever I seen. That's what my old man used to say. Damndest thing ever I seen. At the very least, three or four times a day. I guess he was easy to impress. One of the beauties of baseball is that, no matter how …
The Boston Red Sox were off Monday night. They're playing the San Francisco Giants at Fenway Park tonight. Although there were a couple movies in which I had some interest, I idly watched the Republican National Convention out of perverse fascination. It was similar to the reason why, a week earlier, I inexplicably watched an …
Tuesday was another walking contradiction, particularly since I didn't do much walking. I'd been paying attention to really important matters on Monday -- a rained-out stock car race about which the Bleacher Report pays me to write, college baseball regionals, general early-week angst -- and the grass needed cutting, and I'd spent Tuesday morning writing about …
Continue reading She Said, ‘Mama, Got a Note Here from the Harper Valley PTA’
Let’s see. What’s the most boring, clichéd way I can begin a blog? Oh, I got it. Good news and bad news. First, the bad. Sales of Crazy of Natural Causes have been sagging recently. Rather than ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 in the ever-changing rankings, the range has shifted to 50,000 to 200,000 over …
I don’t care if the sun don’t shine / I don’t care if the bells don’t chime / Just as long as you love me. – Buck Owens Time is infinite, but mine isn’t. I just don’t have time to care about everything. Some things don’t amount to a hill of beans, or …
I often have questions that no one answers. For instance, is the danger of having preservatives in our food greater than the danger of eating unpreserved food? I thought about this while noting that the tomato in my refrigerator that I left before I went on a week-long trip still seemed perfectly edible when …
When did we stop believing people who know a lot? It’s everywhere. People are not dissuaded in the least to learn that 97 percent of scientists believe climate change is a major crisis. Person at the grocery store (or on Facebook): “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” Me: “How much do you know about …
Nightrider's Lament 